


Parabola

by Stacicity



Series: Jonah Fics [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A lot of affectionate mockery at the expense of clueless academics, Anal Sex, Barnabas does not get Lonelyed but he doesn't have a good time either, Breathplay, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Dom/sub, Epistolary Format (Partial), Gratuitous medical inaccuracies, In which I co-opt real life historical expeditions for my own sordid use, It feels redundant tagging a Jonah fic with that but there we are, M/M, Medical Kink, Oral Sex, Sensory Deprivation, Trans Jonah Magnus, Trans Jonathan Fanshawe, Vaginal Fingering, Vast-typical weirdness, it's ANOTHER fic about the regency bastards! your eyes do not deceive you!, this one doesn't feature poor old dandyfoot bungas but it's a close-run thing, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29376846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stacicity/pseuds/Stacicity
Summary: In which Barnabas travels to Egypt, Jonah visits the doctor, Simon spies an opportunity and Mordechai misplays a hand. An alternative fate for Barnabas Bennett written for the Jonah server.
Relationships: Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus, Barnabas Bennett/Mordechai Lukas, Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus, Simon Fairchild/Barnabas Bennett
Series: Jonah Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759540
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Associated Articles Regarding One Jonah Magnus





	1. Paroxysm

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of me drawing three things neatly into one place, one which was already on AO3 and two which weren't. The first chapter is actually chapter 3 of my Jonah Week fics - reposted here for ease - and the last two chapters are server gifts written for some delightful friends. They're weird, strange and odd! I hope you enjoy them.
> 
> This chapter in the particular it's a lot more Jonah focused with some fun and funky footnotes. It also features a medical encounter capitalising on the cliché of hysteria. Yes, I'm aware that it was not historically treated with vibrators or any other sexual means. Within the context of this fic it's clear (I hope!) that neither Jonathan nor Jonah believe a single word of the nonsense they're talking.

` Excerpt from the selected casenotes of Dr Jonathan B Fanshawe (1789-1851), donated to The Ashmolean in 1952 by Aloysius Lukas `

**Patient name** : _Jonah Alexander Magnus, Esq._ 1

 **Date** : _19 January, 1814_

 **Notes** : _Patient presented with complaints of insomnia, loss of appetite and temperamental behaviour; noted in particular that he was prone to displays of anxiety or irritability. Initial physical examination showed no significant irregularities outside of those noted in the casenotes of the referral meeting (11 July 1813). 2 Patient reported no change in his diet or his habits bar an increase in physical exertion attributed to the take-up of good sport 3. Aside from a bout of aphonia over Michaelmas, the patient has otherwise been in good health, and I was unable to find evidence of a significant physiological complaint that might necessitate medical treatment._

_He expressed interest in the inducement of paroxysm as a treatment for emotional irregularity, and given the lack of personal research I have thus far been inclined to conduct on such matters, I thought it prudent to attempt it 4. A tisane was also prescribed to aid rest, and the patient appeared satisfied with the results of the meeting. Instructed to keep a weather eye on symptoms and return in a fortnight if there is no marked improvement._

* * *

1 Founder of the Magnus Institute (1818- present), a research institute dedicated to the exploration of paranormal incidences. Cross-referencing with documents of the time would suggest that Mr Magnus was rather young at the time of this investigation, approximately in his early twenties, though his birth records have never been located.[return to text]

2Also missing or otherwise destroyed - no mention of ‘irregularity’ has been made in any letters to or from Magnus, or notable in any portraits of him at the time (which include a small number of tasteful nudes by E. Miniati in his usual style) so whilst it is safe to rule out physical deformity, the exact nature of these irregularities remains unknown. [return to text]

3Somewhat unusual for a London-dwelling gentleman of this period; it is likely that this refers to tennis, or perhaps riding. [return to text]

4 Hysterical paroxysm: the term given for a doctor inducing a (normally female) patient to orgasm as a treatment for hysteria. Given that hysteria was attributed to the presence of a uterus it would be unusual to see such a method performed upon a male patient, but it may have been a link to other features of Hippocratic medicine and a perceived imbalance in the humours of the body. Fanshawe’s notes suggest that Mr Magnus was treated in this fashion several times throughout the next decade, and he seems positive regarding the results; what he thought he was treating remains unclear, as many of Fanshawe’s case notes regarding Magnus are, unfortunately, as yet missing.[return to text]

* * *

“I’m surprised you’re so interested, really - it’s nothing all that exciting.”

“Well, speak for yourself,” Jonah laughs. “You ought to hear how Clara speaks of it.”

“Clara- is she not married yet?”

“Engaged.”

“Ah.”

“And capitalising on the treatment while she remains in that state, as I understand it. Albrecht certainly seems to find her all the calmer for it. I only hope he can keep her in the manner to which she has become accustomed when they do finally marry, as I understand she’s rather fond of her doctor.”

“You’re an abominable gossip,” Jonathan sighs, aiming for disapproval and losing it somewhere along the way to reluctant fondness. “I’m sure Albrecht will prove, er- well, I hope they’ll be very happy together.”

“Oh, _happy_ , undoubtedly.” Jonah waves a hand as if that’s of no consequence. “I’m sure they’ll find a sort of happiness.”

“Don’t be so callous, Jonah,” Jonathan tuts, nudging him backwards to the table upon which he performs his examinations. “Come, now, if you’d be so good as to disrobe and lie on the table for me I’d be most obliged.”

“Certainly.” Jonah reaches for his cravat, undoing it with a few elegant pulls of his slim fingers. “Do you do this much?”

“Examinations?”

“Of this _type_. Manual intervention, if you like.”

“Oh. Well, no, not really. _Most_ of my patients are rather more prone to bashfulness than you,” Jonathan replies, doing his best to keep up the veneer of professionalism though truth be told he’s rather at a loss. It’s not the treatment that’s causing him any particular shock - he is a _doctor_ , after all - but the way in which Magnus has sauntered into his office and listed the symptoms of hysteria like he knows them by rote.

Perhaps he does. He certainly seems like the cat that got the cream now, and for all that Jonathan intends to be a consummate professional about this, it’s hard not to want to derail his smugness a little.

“I’m surprised you find yourself in need,” he adds casually a moment later, making a few more notes upon his page before crossing to the basin at the side of the room to wash his hands. “It was my understanding that you were quite adequately cared for in this respect.”

Jonah chuckles, low and warm, and the sound makes the hair on the back of Jonathan’s neck stand up. He can feel his eyes on him like a weight, hear the rustle of fabric as Jonah’s waistcoat slides from his shoulders and is folded, placed neatly on a nearby chair.

“And _I’m_ the gossip. From whom have you heard such scandalous things, Dr Fanshawe?”

Jonathan opens his mouth and then closes it again, finding his boldness deserting him at the prospect of voicing some of the things that he’s heard about Jonah Magnus from certain parties. _One_ certain party, anyway, who is rather free with his comments, and Jonathan wouldn’t like to get him in trouble.

“You can, ah- you can leave your shirt on, if you like,” he says instead, drying his hands off and keeping his eyes tactfully averted until he hears the table creak, a sigh as Jonah settles himself onto his back, heels nearly touching his backside, knees primly closed.

“I ought to be rather cross with Barnabas for spreading such slander,” Jonah murmurs, tilting his head to watch Jonathan and grinning outright at the flush in his cheeks at being caught out. “But I’m sure I can be assured of your discretion, doctor, can I not?”

“Of course.”

“Well. Then, since you _ask_ , I find myself quite satisfied. Nonetheless, any medical treatment ought be performed by a doctor and not an amateur, however well-meaning.”

It’s hard to argue with that, really. Harder still given that Jonathan doesn’t _want_ to argue, and they both know it. It has been a dance of soft words and careful courtesies, thus far, Jonathan touching Jonah only as far as his medical responsibilities require, never mind that he yearns for more. That he can’t _help_ but yearn for more. Jonah is scalpel-sharp, too much so for his own good, and curious with it. He pushes at boundaries like fingers at the edge of a wound and Jonathan wants to rush up like blood to meet him. They have never kissed, but Jonathan’s eyes have traced the curve of Jonah’s lip (winestained or blue with frost or laughing) enough that he could draw it, if he so chose.

But today he is not a lover, he is a _doctor_ , and for all of Jonah’s provocation he will conduct himself with decorum. One of them has to.

“Well. Then we’d best begin,” he replies as levelly as he can manage.

* * *

`Pu Songling Research Centre Digital Resources [English] `

`J:\\DigitisedResources\1800-1900\1800-1850\1810-1820\140119JFanshaweNoteFragmentHRv1.03`

`Accessed from London, England 16.07.17 IP 96.245.163.202`

_Cont._ 5

Observations from initial massage are of significant tension in thighs & hips, though given the patient's interest in this procedure it is unclear whether this is due to anxiety (as previously asserted) or excitement. Noted to the patient that their obvious enjoyment and curiosity was of no use to the objective study of this manner of proceedings; the patient’s response was deemed too lewd to be recorded even to private notes, as is typical of them 6. Genital massage produced a most agreeable response in that it induced temporary quiet from the patient (a miracle in itself) and given the malady experienced earlier in the year this can only be of benefit to the patient’s throat, which experiences significant stress in the usual course of their habits. 7

* * *

5 Continuation of a further set of notes: the prior fragment has yet to be matched, and so the patient remains unknown[return to text]

6 This fragment exhibits a significant discrepancy in tone from the rest of Fanshawe’s work as we have been able to find it; working hypothesis thus far is that Fanshawe was fond enough of this particular patient to break with his own notation and form (though this fragment is also early enough in his career that his typical style is as yet undeveloped and immature), in contrast to the heavily annotated & almost cryptic notes seen in later fragments (e.g d.240244)[return to text]

7 A possible reference to loquaciousness on the part of the patient - or a career that required heavy use of the voice? Singer, politician? [return to text]

* * *

“Are you ever going to _begin_?” Jonah huffs, and Jonathan smiles. He’s slid Jonah’s knees carefully apart and has one finger rubbing small, gentle circles over his cock, oh-so soft, cataloguing the minute twitches of Jonah’s hips as he tries to stay still, fingers clenching and unclenching at his side.

“The essence of hysteria, Mr Magnus, as I’m sure you’ll be aware from your own research, is in the release of tension and an imbalance of fluids. I’m afraid it’s not something that a, ah- fleeting encounter will do much to fix.”

“ _Fleeting_ ,” Jonah laughs despite himself, head falling back against the table with a soft thump. “Oh, some of my companions would be most displeased to hear you speculate so, Dr Fanshawe.”

“What you do in your own time-” Jonathan murmurs, though he can’t hide his smile. There’s something absolutely infectious about Jonah’s shameless glee, all of his mischief, and he ought to disapprove of it (he does, he _does_ ) but he is so often surrounded by solemnity that a bit of whimsy and caprice is quite charming.

Jonah, of course, is charming and knows it. Especially so like this, eyes slipping closed as he presses his hips towards Jonathan’s finger, flying open again when Jonathan lowers his hand a little, drags his finger through Jonah’s folds where he’s already growing slick and eager.

“ _Christ_ ,” he hisses, frustration more than pleasure, and Jonathan blinks at him from behind his glasses with as much innocence as he can muster.

“Ah - there’s that irritability again,” he says softly. “I ought to make a note of that-”

“Don’t you _dare_ , your notes can wait-” Jonah mutters darkly, lifts his head to glower at Jonathan and then lets it fall back all over again when Jonathan slips a finger inside him. “ _Oh_ \- you’re a tyrant.” He’s laughing when he says it, though, Jonathan is stunned to find that he can feel him shaking with it, _around_ him, and he has to suck in a quick breath to keep from losing his own composure.

“Never fear, I shan’t abandon you. Settle down, now, this is supposed to calm you down, not work you up into a frenzy.”

“Hardly a- _ah_ \- a frenzy,” Jonah protests, but it comes out more like a sigh when Jonathan twists his hand, thumbing at Jonah’s cock and slipping another finger into him and it’s- it’s medical, it’s the _procedure_ , pelvic massage for the release of tension, but he can see a flush stealing over Jonah’s cheeks and his curls falling out of their careful placement and something about the drape of his shirt over his pale stomach and the tops of his thighs where he’s rucked it up a little is making Jonathan’s mouth go quite dry. “If you wanted to see a frenzy-”

“Yes, Jonah, your reputation _does_ precede you.” Sarcasm, that’s the answer, if he can be distant enough, restrained enough, if he can stop himself from wanting to bite at Jonah’s knee and his thigh, to feel his pulse racing just under the skin, then perhaps he can get through this with a little dignity. “Settle _down_ , please. I’ll take care of you.” His voice cracks there, damn, _damn_ , but he hears a sharp little intake of breath from Jonah, feels him clench around his fingers just for a moment.

It seems they both like that idea.

“Just as you say, doctor,” Jonah murmurs, all demureness again even with Jonathan’s fingers inside him, even with his pupils blown wide and dark.

* * *

`Excerpt from a letter found amongst the personal effects of E. Miniati along with a series of his earlier works, donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum by a private collector (S. Fairchild) in 1982; sender unknown. `

_...not without its merits as a treatment, though mind you the good doctor took immense pleasure in drawing out proceedings far longer than strictly necessary. I’m sure you will be immensely gratified to know that my sleep has indeed been greatly improved since, as you suggested it might be, though it has done very little to dampen what you insist on referring to as my ‘precocity’; I shouldn’t think there’s a medical treatment as yet known that could achieve that! Nonetheless I have every intention of pursuing the matter further while the good doctor remains amenable; whether or not the treatment has the desired effect on me vis à vis a general calming remains to be seen, but I certainly found the doctor to be stimulating company, as I am sure you would too. When you return I may well introduce you both - and to the others, too - as I believe you would find him just as charming as I do._

_When you see Barnabas 8next you might instruct him to maintain a more discreet approach to his gossipping, or else find a better use for his mouth than slander (somewhere to dip your quill, as M might say). I have every faith that you will take to the matter with your usual diligence even in the midst of all your vitally-important artistic work; how you have convinced the Royal Society to bring you both to stare at sarcophagi 9 and affect erudition I will never know, but perhaps they imagined you would be best-placed there with the other relics 10. Regardless, if you can bring Barnabas home with a sense of decorum along with a tan I would be most obliged to you._

_Otherwise all remains much the same in London, albeit far quieter in your absence as you might expect (much to M’s delight). If I never hear the name Bentham again it will be far too soon but R has received his funding, so with any luck he will be too busy building the thrice-damned thing to talk my ear off about the inspection principle any further 11..._

Curator’s note: this fragment found alongside a sketch of a nude with a figure alongside (presumably a doctor) undertaking some manner of physical examination; the nude is faceless, and the suggestion of linen bandages at the chest may be a form study linked to Miniati’s later studies of mummification in Abu Simbel.

* * *

8 Likely Barnabas Bennett, an acquaintance of Miniati’s during the early 19th century; Bennett features heavily in letters throughout the 1810’s but mentions of him drop off sharply around the mid-1820s, and no death records or further note of his presence are available from any of his other known contemporaries (see: _Lukas, Mordechai_ & _Smirke, Robert_ ).[return to text]

9The Royal Society conducted an expedition to Egypt in 1814-15 journeying from Alexandria down to Abu Simbel; Miniati accompanied the trip for the purposes of sketching relics as an initial record, and Bennett is also listed as an associated party, though the purpose of his place there is as yet unknown.[return to text]

10 Miniati’s precise date of birth is a source of mystery to art historians, as is his date of death, but best estimates suggest that the date of this letter would put Miniati at approximately his mid-late thirties. [return to text]

11 Likely in reference to Robert Smirke’s work on Millbank Penitentiary (the construction of which began in 1815) that drew heavily from the social philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, and was constructed on the original site of Bentham’s failed ‘Panopticon’. Millbank Penitentiary was demolished in 1890. [return to text]

* * *

“- _Jonathan_ -”

“At this rate you’re going to bring the place down around our ears,” Jonathan says softly, but he’s breathless too, his eyes dry like he hasn’t blinked in minutes, too loath to miss a single second of Jonah all but _writhing_ against his hand, grinding his hips down like he’d take his pleasure from him whether he was moving or not.

He is moving, as it happens. He’s dedicated himself fully to his task, captivated by the sheen of sweat glowing against Jonah’s skin, almost pearlescent, the gentle arch of his back and the way his knuckles are white against the edge of the table. Jonah is _beautiful_ , he’s radiant, and Jonathan has rolled his sleeves up to the elbow so as to better concentrate because he cannot possibly slow his pace, not when Jonah is spurring him on with sweet, desperate sounds.

His other hand is flat against the table and not, carefully _not_ against Jonah’s ankle or his knee or his hip, not tracing the line of his jaw or tangled against his curls. He is leaning forward so as to see Jonah’s face but not so far that there could be any suggestion of a kiss, of his lips traced against petal-soft skin. Even with Jonah red-cheeked and gasping, his toes curling against the table, there is still a professional excuse for this.

There is no excuse for the _sounds_ that Jonah is making, choked little moans torn from his chest, nor how fixated Jonathan is on what might happen if he were to dip his head and taste him, what sounds Jonah might make then. He presses his lips flat closed and forces his breathing steady, keeping his movements slow and methodical. Gentle passes of his thumb against Jonah’s cock, a careful crook of his fingers, all of it apparently enough to drive Jonah half-mad. All of it enough to drive Jonathan half-mad with the memory, he has no doubt, but he can scarcely summon a thought for the future.

It’s all the present. Jonah’s eyes squeezed shut and his hair in disarray, his shirt sliding up his ribs, diaphanous and shadowing his skin in a line that Jonathan wants to follow with his tongue, his thighs shaking as he clenches his legs shut like he can hold Jonathan there forever, the beautiful line of his throat stretched swanlike and long as he throws his head back and comes extravagantly, rapturously.

Jonathan allows Jonah a moment to catch his breath - it’s only courteous - but keeps his fingers just where they are, meeting his eyes for the barest of moments before sliding away to look at his cheeks instead, still flushed pink, the redness to Jonah’s lips where he’s bitten then.

“Well, now,” he says softly, brushing his thumb against Jonah’s cock again to watch the twitch of his hips, the way his thighs tense all over again. “Are you ready to continue?”

* * *

`Excerpt from a letter dated 22 January, 1813 sent to Jonah Magnus (1792-1860) by an unknown source.`

`Fragment loaned to Queer Britain’s inaugural exhibition by a private collector [Anon]`

_...was most strident; why, if I didn’t know better I would almost think you were angry with me. He gave me a telling-off of which I am sure you would heartily approve, and was sure to extract promises of discretion and circumspection in all manner of devilish ways that have left me entirely useless for the last two days of travel. I assure you that in future you will find me nothing short of clandestine regarding every encounter you have, sweetpea, though I’m afraid I am not sure I trust you to exercise similar caution. 12I am glad, of course, that you found the doctor suitable; I am loath to think of your health not being adequately cared for in my absence, and I know how prone to fevers you are. I am also glad to have left you in safe hands - as many pairs as London can afford you!_

_It is unbearably hot here - you would hate it, I’m afraid - but E is bouncing from sand dune to sand dune with incomparable glee and seems more thrilled the further down the river we travel and the farther from any sign of bustling life. Now that we’ve the largest cities behind us it is silent and enormous - farmland and floodplains - and the sky seems extraordinarily large here, so much so that one might almost fall into it! I have dreamed as much on a few nights thus far this trip, though I blame E’s wine for that in the main. It is awfully quiet. Atmospheric, too, and whilst I of course miss you desperately I cannot say I’m keen to return to the bustle of London when there is all of this desolate beauty behind me. One day I should very much like to bring you here, to explore the ruins and the silence of years gone by, just you and I. I know you are not much one for long walks, but I would happily carry you as far as you would like._

_Have fun back home, angel, and enjoy yourself 13. Try not to be too cross with me for having warned the good doctor of your ways; after all, when one is an acquaintance and (dare I say it?) favoured companion of the most beautiful man in London, discretion seems a Herculean task. It is all I can do not to sing your praises to everyone I meet, and I trust the doctor’s tact (if not my own). Besides which, it would have seemed unfair to leave the poor man unprepared for a force of nature such as yourself._

_As for what you asked me to investigate on your behalf, I must say that thus far…_

* * *

12Notes surrounding Magnus’ private affairs link him to several gentlemen at the time, though there is as yet no decisive proof as to whether any were his lovers, or merely dear friends. Magnus conducted himself in a circle of similarly-minded men and was affectionately expressive in all of the correspondence we’ve been able to uncover; it is plausible that this is simply the manner in which he chose to communicate with his confidants, and they with him (with the exception of some notes to an M Lukas that are constructed with almost parodic formality). [return to text]

13The use of this particular endearment suggests that this letter may be from Barnabas Bennett, who was prone to describing Magnus as such in several pieces of correspondence. [return to text]

* * *

Jonathan is immensely fortunate that he has no patients scheduled for the rest of the afternoon, that he has no other demands upon his time today, because he couldn’t tear himself away even if he tried. Three times, now, he has made Jonah clench and shudder around him. Three times he has afforded him mere seconds in which to collect himself before resuming, and now Jonah is wrecked, shuddering under his hand.

His facade of professionalism is wearing paper thin. When Jonathan shifts his weight he can feel himself slick against his own thighs and aching to his very core, but it’s easily ignored in favour of Jonah’s ragged breaths, the unseeing look in his eyes, the rawness of his voice when he cries out at the crook of Jonathan’s fingers within him.

“I- I can’t, Jonathan, I-”

“Of course you can,” Jonathan replies softly, “I’m a doctor, am I not? Put your faith in me and do as you’re told, and you’ll feel all the better for it. One more for me, Mr Magnus.”

Jonah groans, and Jonathan can’t quite tell if it’s a laugh or a genuine cry of despair, but at that particular moment doesn’t much care. His shoulder is screaming for some manner of respite, his hand is cramping, but it’s a natural matter to shift his weight again and settle a firm hand against Jonah’s thigh, to throw caution to the wind and bend his head to run his tongue over Jonah’s slick folds and the base of his own fingers, to taste where he’s overslick and salty. The noise that Jonah makes is _exquisite_ , a high keen dragged from the back of his throat, and Jonathan recalls the myth of the Lotus Eaters, imagines dazing in idleness for hours or months or years with the taste of Jonah sweet on his lips.

“One more,” he murmurs with his nose pressed to the trimmed curls above Jonah’s cock, and Jonah huffs out a breath that might be agreement or exhaustion, presses his hips up determinedly towards Jonathan’s mouth. Stubborn, prideful man. Jonathan feels a strange sort of fondness bloom in his chest; he’s gone this far and he doesn’t intend to stop now, dragging his tongue over Jonah’s cock in broad strokes, pressing his fingers firmly into him again and again and working him up, Jonah’s legs shaking so much that Jonathan tightens his grip on his leg to steady him so he doesn’t shake himself from the table entirely.

When Jonah finally comes again it sounds almost painful, ripped from him in a way that leaves him shuddering limp against the table like something dragged from a rough and merciless sea. Jonathan straightens, wiping his chin against his forearm and withdrawing his fingers as gently as he can, shaking out his wrist with a wince.

“There, now,” he says softly, leaning over Jonah and using his clean hand to thumb dampness from his cheek where the stimulation has forced reflexive tears from his eyes. “I think you shall find your sleep easier, tonight, at least.”

“I think-” Jonah drags in a breath, forces his eyes open to give Jonathan a lazy grin, feline and self-satisfied, “you’re likely right, doctor. And I shall expect my dreams to be very pleasant indeed.”

* * *

`Excerpt from a letter kept within a locked cabinet, owned by Elias Bouchard and located in his Chelsea home, dated 16 March 1814. `

_...most obliged to you for your assistance regarding my medical research, and I am sure that you will be terribly keen to read the results, but such results are unlikely to be published in any Journal of any repute. After all, there’s not much in the findings; as a potential treatment for hysteria I’m sure there is immense value in the sort of treatment I gave you, and certainly it seems to pacify you for a night, if not much longer than that, but given your own tendency towards insatiability and your rapacious nature I should consider you a considerable outlier in any case of this manner._

_Which is not, of course, to reproach you in any way. I consider myself immensely privileged to have been witness to you in such states (and more besides, as of a few nights ago; really, Jonah, your debauchery is quite extraordinary). I hope I shall continue to do so for quite some time. It just won’t be in the capacity of a medical researcher, much less anyone touting a cure for hysteria. I’m afraid if your licentiousness is due to hysteria as its root cause then you’re the most hysterical man I know, and there is simply no hope for you._

_Nonetheless, we persevere. Four was a satisfactory conclusion, but I have every faith that five or six will leave you more pliable still, and with the benefit of the acquaintances to whom you have been kind enough to introduce me, I’ve no doubt we can make some manner of arrangement. With all of my affection I remain, Jonah, yours as ever…_

* * *

`Excerpt from the selected casenotes of Dr Jonathan B Fanshawe (1789-1851), donated to The Ashmolean in 1952 by A. Lukas `

_Cont._ 14

_Repeated experiments over the course of the last few months have yielded a predictable result vis à vis the affliction in question namely that it is, of course, quite incurable; my learned opinion is that the patient suffers from no Earthly malady as yet known to science other than the grave (and incurable) affliction of being himself. A most singular disease and one for which I will attempt to find no cure - firstly because whatever Creator has seen fit to inflict such a thing is quite beyond my power, and secondly because I simply would not wish to._

_If the hallmarks of the disease can be catalogued then singular intellect, razor sharp wit, insatiable curiosity and delicate features (etcetera) can all be said to be quite evident - indeed undeniable - and such symptoms do not as yet seem to be contagious, unlike the predilection for debauchery and foolishness that touches all that interact with the patient 15. I myself have been touched by it, and cannot at this stage comment as to whether there will be any cure for the malady, or whether I shall always be thus captivated. I do not know what I fear more - the disease, or to be free of it._

_He is prone to fevers, to insomnia and to moodiness. He is not delicate or especially sickly but he works himself far too hard, and suffers the consequences accordingly (much as he might like to ignore them). I would advise any future physician undertaking the responsibility for his care to be mindful of his limits, as he himself so often fails to be, and enforce them as and when required. Physical restraint may be necessary - indeed, encouraged, under some circumstances - and whilst he is more than capable of making himself difficult, he is often pacified by attention._

_Still, my own apprehension notwithstanding, I must admit myself reluctant to walk away. I have no illusions about any singularity within the patient’s sphere; he associates with the great and the good, and his favour is fleeting. I have heard tell of many a heartbroken young man turned away from him. Nonetheless, there is simply no responsible path for me to pursue other than to keep close in his company - after all, how many doctors are fortunate enough to study angels on Earth?_

* * *

14A continuation of an earlier study - the date of which, and patient, remains unknown. [return to text]

15Given the style of this note it is possible that this was intended as a sort of love letter; to the best of our knowledge (and given its place in this collection) it was never sent. [return to text]


	2. Vacuum

_Dearest Jonah,_

_I know that you have entreated me to tell you of our voyage in as much detail as I can usefully recall. I hope you will excuse my own ignorance in being unable to recount much of the conversation between our guides, and the scholars that accompany us - they speak in French and German, which I can follow passably, and Italian and Arabic, which I cannot, and in such terms of erudition and detail that it dizzies my poor mind. But I will tell you a little of our companions, since they are wondrous strange indeed, a cavalcade of odd characters even above and beyond the requisite oddness of academics with which you will already be so familiar._

_The de-facto leader of this trip is a man called Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, though he prefers to be known as Louis. He tells me that in recent years there have been several expeditions into these sandy realms that have led only to death and disaster and the theft of antique relics and pillaging of holy sites - there is great suspicion of European travellers, for good reason, and Louis himself has been left more than once impoverished and alone in the desert, even with all of his knowledge of Arabic and of the local customs - so much detail you would hardly believe, and shared with such vibrancy and energy that it’s difficult to keep up. He’s a Cambridge man, of course, but he studied at Aleppo for years, and has made much investigation of all sorts of things, including some odd little pictograms that he says were once the language of Anatolia, circles and lines and squares all jumbled together._

_I must say that I can make neither head nor tail of them, but the histories that Louis draws from them are strange and detailed and wonderful. He tells me that the language - image-based as it is - relies more heavily on aesthetics than a strict grammar, and that pleases Emiliano immensely; you know how often he has decried English and its clumsy, blockish words. I think if he could communicate in strange little pictures, he would, and be all the happier for it._

_Louis has travelled the length and breadth of this part of the world, all the way from Malta down to Aleppo, to Damascus, to Philae, to the depths of the desert where he found himself abandoned and had to fall upon the mercy of a local Bedouin tribe that guided him safely outwards. I think you would like Louis very much, Jonah, if you met him; he notices everything, he remembers everything, he asked me yesterday if I had heard from my brother, asked after the health of Percy’s wife, his children, remembered their names -_

_I must say, I found myself embarrassed not to have many details for him. I ought to write again to Percy soon._

_Emiliano has fallen in with another member of our little gang, an Italian like himself who goes by the name of Giovanni Belzoni. A more eccentric character you never will have found, even in our circle! He is a scholar, he studied engineering in Rome - I have sent Robert some of his notes on hydraulics, since I know he was moaning about the difficulty of heating and hydrating a prison as cavernous as Millbank - but for a time he lived in the Netherlands and worked as a barber, his father’s old profession. He’s a mountain of a man, as large as Mordechai but with none of his reticence._

_Do you remember the amphitheatre in Westminster, just over the bridge from Parliament, where you and I visited Astley’s circus? Belzoni was the strongman there for a while, and a magician - we may have seen him perform. I would say that he is not a character easily forgotten but he may have been behind mirrors doing mysterious things with lanterns, so we might not have seen the shape of him fully. Emiliano is very fond of him, and they trade stories and japeries long into the night. He has an old samovar that he will not travel without, ornate and beautiful, and he uses it to make endless cups of Russian tea for himself and the rest of us to warm us when the night grows cold._

_And oh, it grows cold! During the day the sun is so low and so heavy that it seems it may swallow us entirely, and I envy the camels their own stores of water since we must ration ours carefully to avoid being without it as our journey continues through the desert, when we are further from the Nile. Louis will tell us all that the waters of the Nile are rich and fertile and I must say it’s more irritating than interesting, since thinking of a huge and fast-flowing river is enough to drive a man mad when he feels like he’s ossifying from lack of water. I never thought I would miss the rain so much, the splatter of it upon the cobbles or the way that you dance and fuss when it splashes onto your new coat, or the puddles risk staining your stockings._

_But then at night, the sun vanishes and it’s like the air has never felt warmth, and we pile on heavy blankets and stick close to one another and Giovanni’s samovar becomes a source of salvation even if it’s a wanton waste of the water we do have, but a man of his size is hardly going to hear much protestation from anyone, not least when the tea is the only source of relief from the chill. You would hate it. I know how you get about the cold, blowing on your fingers and stamping your feet. Were you here, I think even you would get over your fastidious nature to press close to a camel’s side for the warmth of it, but you must beware - if they grow ornery, they spit!_

_What else can I tell you? That when the night falls and the air is quite, quite still, the desert sings. It roars, like it is angry at our presence, and the ground shivers like the sands may swallow us quite up along with all of the lost tombs. Louis says that each grain of sand may be a fragment of the palace of a great ruler, and winks at me, and tells me not to bury my treasures where none can see, since it only makes work for men like him to dredge up the glories and oddities of the past. I think, perhaps, Mordechai ought to come here. Not for the glories of the past - he would be affronted, maybe, by disturbing what he feels ought to be laid to rest - but to be buried here, and forgotten, and carried away with the winds until all of his grumbling becomes the singing of the sands. I think, perhaps, I would not mind that so much. It seems a more sensible way of dying than being laid in a wooden box._

_Forgive me! It is hard not to grow morbid when one is so frequently reminded that we are exploring the lives of those long-since departed. Even Emiliano grows quiet, sometimes, and contemplative. He slips away out of our tent in the night when he thinks I’m asleep and sits out on the sands, staring up at the sky, all of the stars scattered like a spray of paint from his brush, and the light from the fire as it dwindles down makes him look strange and wrinkled, like he’s been made out of paper and crumpled in somebody’s fist. But during the day he is as energetic as Louis, bounding ahead and dashing over dunes to see what might lie on the horizon, so perhaps I am making too much of things. Even Emiliano must wish for a quiet, solemn moment sometimes, though you would never know it speaking to him._

_The strangest thing, I think, is how all of these wonders and treasures - the bustle of Cairo and the oddity of riding on camels, or hearing Giovanni’s stories, or the food we eat or the spiced wine - make me long for the simplest comforts of home, and bring back the oddest, most banal little memories. Do you remember the first time we stayed with Mordechai in Kent, and I tried to sneak off to your room without rousing the others, and the creaking of the floorboards was so raucous and strange - like a nightingale floor - that Mordechai made it to your door before I did to tell me off for disturbing the peace, and we had to instruct ourselves in the choreography of his noisy old house so as to slip about as silently as he does; or last Christmas, when Robert instructed us all in how to make a fort out of the snow, a little hollow to keep in the warmth, and gathered us close in his huge fur coat under the layers and layers of cold; or sitting in Jonathan’s little study while the fire crackles, playing cards and teasing him like children while he rolls his eyes and pretends that he minds a whit how boisterous we are._

_Or you. Just you, Jonah, laughing at all of the gossip in your letters or being measured for your new coat or being so very exact about the temperature of your bathwater. I miss you. It’s only been a week or two that I have been away from England, and of course I think of the others, all of Jonathan’s fussing that I eat well and don’t get lost and clean behind my ears and so forth, all of Robert’s endless questions, even Mordechai’s grumbling, but I miss you most of all. I feel a little as if I have headed off into the unknown leaving one of my limbs behind me, isn’t that strange? I think of you often, what you are doing, what you are thinking of, whether you are thinking of me. I’m sure you are kept busy, since you have never taken well to idleness, but I beg you to pay a thought or two to me, once in a while, and to remember that even here in the depths of antiquity and across the centuries of history that may lay between us, I am yours, and I am thinking of you._

_Affectionately yours,_

_Barnabas._

* * * 

“You’ve been at that letter hours,” Emiliano remarks, the first thing he’s said in a while, and Barnabas startles enough that he nearly knocks the inkpot from the little table he’s using as a makeshift writing desk, and has to scramble to catch it before the ink escapes into the embroidered rug under his chair. 

“Well, I’ve plenty to write about,” he replies. “And you know Jonah, if he feels I’m being sparing on detail he’ll sulk and he’ll fuss until I have given him the inner-thigh measurement of every man on this trip and he has been adequately satisfied.” 

Emiliano laughs, nodding his agreement and sitting down on his bedroll. It’s not a luxurious residence they share, here, out on the road, but it’s suitable enough. There are rugs and candles, there are heavy blankets to stave off the chill, there is a plate of dates and figs should they grow hungry. And outside of the walls of the tent, the wind blows, and the clouds hurry across the blue expanse of the sky as if they, too, have an expedition, and a deadline to chase. 

“I suppose you’ve told him all about Cairo, then?” Emiliano inquires, plucking a date from the dish and popping it between his lips. Barnabas opens his mouth, closes it again, frowns down at the letter. 

“No, I- well, actually I don’t suppose I did, much. I’ll have to put it in the next letter. Though I don’t know how he’ll write back. It’s hardly as if they send postmen out into the desert to deliver missives to the goats and the snakes and the lizards.” 

“Stranger things happen at sea,” Emiliano says cheerfully, and Barnabas makes a face. 

“Don’t - I’ve not yet recovered from our passage over. Seasick then, and sunsick in Alexandria, and sick to my stomach in Damanhur-” he mutters, blowing on his letter to dry the ink and resolving that he will tell Jonah about none of that, no matter his promises to be detailed. Jonah is shameless about teasing, and he will never hear the end of it if Jonah thinks that he has spent most of his time in Egypt playing the invalid. 

“Yes, you have been unfortunate,” Emiliano replies, still cheerful, working the flesh of the date loose from the stone with his lips and teeth and tongue until he spits a perfectly clean seed into a little copper pot with a resounding _clang_ that makes Barnabas jump all over again.

“I don’t wish to be a burden,” he mutters. “Next thing I’ll fall from the camel and break my fool leg, or crack my skull, or drown in the Nile-”

“My, you _are_ morbid tonight.” Not that Emiliano seems fazed by it. Barnabas thinks sometimes he could go quite mad and Emiliano would react to him just the same way, placid and immovable. Amusement and merriment ripple over his face like currents, like those rushing clouds across the sky, but underneath it all is a stillness that Barnabas sees sometimes, like nothing Emiliano feels ever quite penetrates deep enough beneath the surface to be really felt. 

Barnabas feels a flash of irritation, and guilt chasing it just as swiftly, and turns his face away with a sigh. “No, I’m - I apologise. I am trying to think of what I ought to write to Percy.” 

“Ah. Your brother?” 

“That’s right.” Dear Percy, jolly, steady Percy, who bobs through life like a cheerful little boat upon the sea, red-cheeked and merry and devoted to his wife, to his three children. Who kneels at the threshold of his door and holds out his arms for them so that they can bound into his embrace, lifted upon his shoulders and held to his chest. Percy is no hedonist, he does not grasp for pleasures or influence or knowledge or any of the other things that tempt so many of Barnabas’ companions, but he has carved himself out a little piece of life, cradled it in his hands and moulded it like clay. His wife, his children, all the love he bears them, something simple and whole and his. 

Barnabas does not think that he has an absence of love within his heart. In fact, he knows that he does not - he loves, he loves so fiercely that it aches in his chest and brings tears stinging to his eyes, he is full to overflowing with it like a cask of wine, and like a cask he is stopped up with clay and resin and all the overwhelming pressure of his feelings has not yet been enough to pop the seal and let his feelings free. 

It’s _embarrassing_. He loves his niece and his nephews, he loves Percy - Percy who is unquestionably an adult, settled and grown, even with only three years between them and when Barnabas still feels so often like he is a child - and he is helpless to express it. Not with his clumsy, tripping tongue. Not with his hands, too-large, never quite right for the job at hand, not with his pen when words are so inadequate for the vast well of emotion that aches inside of him. Even Jonah only seems able to free a trickle of it from him. 

On his worst days, he lays his head into Jonah’s lap like a dog and trusts that Jonah is clever enough to see that which he cannot express. Love fills him like toothache, and sometimes he wonders whether things would not be easier if he could simply tear it free of himself, stop up the raw and bleeding hole with something else and hand over what soft and tender parts of himself might please Jonah to consume. And so Jonah consumes him, at least with his body, with his searing lips and cruel pinches and twists of his clever fingers, and even then-

Barnabas stares at his blank piece of paper, and thinks of shifting sands. Great men make their marks upon the world, and still have it buried and wiped away by time. Will he leave anything? Does he wish to? What shall he tell Percy about his journey to assuage the concern he knows that his brother feels for him, what should he say to convince his brother that he is settled in his own skin, and carving his own path rather than following in the wake of others? It’s humiliating to compare his odd shell of a life to the wholeness of Percy’s. There are no anecdotes or reassurances sufficient for that which he feels, and even if he suspects that something may be better than nothing, that Percy will simply be glad to hear from him no matter what he says, he is disgusted by his own insufficiencies-

“Barnabas?” 

He looks up sharply, staring at Emiliano, now silhouetted where night has drawn in thick and fast. He can’t see his face, just the dim gleam of his eyes in the candlelight, and the stretch of his shadow as he reaches out his hand to take his shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“Perhaps you’ll try again tomorrow,” Emiliano suggests lightly, and Barnabas stares at his empty page, and nods, standing to step into Emiliano’s outstretched arms, their shadows joined into one against the wall of the tent.

* * * 

It turns out that postmen in Egypt do indeed decline to venture into the desert, but when they stop at Beni Suef, a city on the lush banks of the Nile, there are letters waiting for them at the consulate. Out of the desert for a night or two the melancholy drains from Barnabas a little and he follows Emiliano to the river to watch the wind sway date-palms, to watch little fishing boats track across the calm waters, to sit at his side and listen to him read Jonah’s words to him. 

“This doctor of yours sounds quite a character,” Emiliano murmurs after some moments of silence, having read ahead a few lines without opening his mouth, and Barnabas laughs and lays his head against his shoulder, soothed by the warm and spice-laden air and the wash of the river against his bare toes, sandals abandoned to the side on the banks. His feet will be caked with mud and dust when he tries to return to where they’re staying tonight, but right now he cannot bring himself to care. 

“If ever there was a match for Jonah, it’s Jonathan,” he murmurs, wiggling his toes in the water. “He’s a solemn character, most of the time, and busy - he gives himself more work than there are hours in the day for. But his patients love him. He’s sharp, and he’s witty, and he’s very kind.” 

“Mm. Kind enough to favour Jonah with a treatment for hysteria.” 

“So it seems.” Barnabas can’t help but blush at the idea of it, Jonathan leaning over Jonah to inspect him - perhaps Jonah muffling his sounds with a palm pressed to his mouth or, more likely, being quite shameless about his cries and moans, making the rest of Jonathan’s patients wonder what is going on behind the closed door of office. His mouth is dry, and his cheeks flame still hotter when Emiliano looks down at him and laughs outright, pressing a fond kiss to his temple. 

“Oh, _dear_. Now, tell me, which one of them are you carrying more of a torch for? Clearly I do have to meet this Doctor Fanshawe since he seems to have made such an impression on you.” 

“Well, I am very impressionable,” Barnabas mumbles, grimacing at the feel of Emiliano ruffling his hair like some puppy that’s learned a clever trick. 

“So you are, so you are,” he says agreeably. “You’re very sweet indeed. Even if prone to gossipping.” 

“Gossipping?” 

“Oh, yes. Jonah makes particular note of that.” Emiliano’s grin is so sharp, his eyes glimmering and glittering and dark, and Barnabas can’t pretend that he doesn’t know what sort of gossipping Jonah might have mentioned after his appointment with Jonathan. 

“I think it would be very unfair to inflict Jonah upon anybody without giving them fair warning of what they might expect,” he deflects, knowing that he will have his ear pinched or his hair pulled for it - and indeed, Emiliano digs his sharp little elbow into his ribs until he yelps, shifting away down the banks and giving him an aggrieved look. “Well, I do!” 

“Any man with half an ounce of sense can look at Jonah and know what they might expect, and this doctor of yours doesn’t strike me as foolish.” 

“He isn’t _my_ doctor- well, he is, but- no more mine than that of his other patients, I mean.”

“No?” 

“No! He’s a generous soul, I’m sure he extends his friendship to lots of people.” 

“Mm.” Emiliano cocks his head like a bird eyeing up a particularly juicy worm and then stands, brushing dust and dirt from his trousers. “You have a peculiar aversion to singling anything out as yours, or being specific about your wants, Mr Bennett.” 

Barnabas remains on the dirty ground, blinking at him with wide eyes, not at all sure what to make of that comment. 

“You mean, I- no, wait, what _do_ you mean? That I am not covetous?” 

“Certainly you’re not that.” 

“That I am, ah - evasive? I try to be as earnest as I can.” 

“I wonder,” is all Emiliano says, squinting up into the duck-egg sky. “Are you enjoying your travels?” 

“I think so,” Barnabas replies, slightly helplessly, staring at the lap of the water against his feet. “I- there are such sights here, such treasures. I feel very lucky to be here.” 

“Yes, yes. And are you _enjoying_ it?”

“I said I was, didn’t I?” 

“More or less.” 

“More or-” Barnabas turns away, suddenly irritable, scrambling to his feet and brushing himself down. “I’m sure I don’t know what answer you want from me.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind a bit.” That placid smile again, that bouncy, expansive shrug of his. “I really don’t. You’re the one working yourself up into a lather over the prospect of some fondness this doctor might bear you.” 

“I-” Barnabas shuts his mouth abruptly, sure that even through the tan he’s picking up from days out in the sun, his cheeks must be cherry red. “I’m going to find some lunch,” he mutters finally, hopping on one foot to put his sandals back on and nearly tripping over before righting himself again. 

“As you like. See you later,” Emiliano replies cheerfully, apparently quite unaffected by the irritable manner of Barnabas’ departure. Barnabas keeps to himself for the rest of the day, wandering the streets of Beni Suef, watching children splash in the shallows of the river, the bustle of the market, the sandstone and the white blocks of buildings all but shining in the sun. He is an oddity here, he knows, he can feel the eyes on him as he passes where in London he is anonymous if he hunches his shoulders and ducks his head. 

A stray dog, rangy and thin, trots across his path to settle in the shade under a carriage, tail thumping against the sand as it yawns, and Barnabas entertains the absurd, nonsensical notion of crawling there with it. Somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere he won’t be found. He misses Jonah more than he can say, the transient sense of belonging that slips so often through his fingers, but is most often found when he has Jonah’s hand on his, cna follow easily in his wake and make himself useful.

He returns to their dwelling for the night, instead, and stares at his inkpot and his quill before curling up in bed.

* * * 

The next time the topic of gossip comes up, Barnabas isn’t really in a position to defend himself. For one thing he’s stretched across a _sheet_ of all things, lying naked on his back with his arms stretched over his head. For another, he has an inkpot in his mouth. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Emiliano tuts with an air of mock-reproof, tapping Barnabas’ nose with one finger to watch him wrinkle it. “You were quite obviously never going to use this ink until your next letter to Jonah. We’ll find you some more somewhere else.” 

That stings. Barnabas’ brow furrows, but if he tries to make some sort of retort he’ll only end up with ink on his lips, his tongue, his teeth, drowned in the stuff, and the smell of it is already heady and dark enough to make his breaths shallow, so he stays quite still and tries to use his teeth to hold the pot steady without cracking it. 

“There’s a good boy,” Emiliano murmurs, fiddling at the periphery of his vision where he can’t quite see him, with something that looks suspiciously like a blade. Barnabas swallows, making an inquisitive noise until he hears Emiliano shift, blowing on something.

“Well, I’m not using a quill for this. Much too delicate. But this will do.” He crouches down, holding something over Barnabas’ face so he can see it - it looks like the barrel of a quill, the tip curved to guide the ink, but made of something light and woody. “Bamboo,” Emiliano says by way of an explanation. “Don’t you worry. You just lie still, and I’ll take care of the rest.” 

Which is mystifying, it is, and Barnabas is still really none the wiser about why he’s been beckoned into the tent to lie on a sheet by candlelight when the desert is going to be cold enough to freeze them both blue before long. Then again, Emiliano doesn’t really seem to _feel_ the cold. He hasn’t an ounce of fat on him, scrawny and skinny, but he only huddles under blankets when he seems to remember that he _ought_ to, and Barnabas hasn’t seen him so much as shiver, hasn’t seen him so much as sweat in the heat. Perhaps he’s forgotten that Barnabas, at least, will be cold. Perhaps it’s by design. 

He curls his toes, uncurls them, listens to the rough, rasping sound of Emiliano smoothing out his odd little pen until he’s satisfied - that, at least, Barnabas is more than happy to wait for, since he doesn’t want splinters embedded _anywhere_. Before long Emiliano returns, dipping the pen into the inkpot and testing it against the edge of the sheet. Barnabas can’t see the mark it makes, but he can see Emiliano smile, the look of genuine and delighted satisfaction on his face, and it settles onto him, onto his ribs, soothing his nerves a little. 

All he has to do is be still, and be good, and Emiliano will take care of the rest. 

The pen stings a little where it drags on his skin, catching on the thin inside of his wrist and over his veins, pulling before it moves on its way and trails darkness behind it. The ink is cold where the air touches it, but it dries rapidly, and Barnabas blinks rapidly as he feels Emiliano trace a line all the way down the inside of one arm, a circle at the inside of his elbow where the skin is ticklish and sensitive and Barnabas has to clench his thighs tightly to keep from wriggling, and then up to his shoulder, a series of dots over his collarbone that sting, punched over the bone like they might bruise, like they might puncture him, mark him forever. 

Emiliano’s eyes are fixed to his task, intent and narrowed, but his face has relaxed out of its perpetual smile. He’s not just drawing on Barnabas, either - once he’s finished with one arm, the sheet around him gets the same treatment, and Emiliano places his free hand against Barnabas’ palm to keep his balance while he draws whatever it is he’s so focused on. 

His skin is cool and soft. Barnabas curls his fingers impulsively inwards to hold onto Emiliano, and feels him hesitate, blinking down at him with those blue, blue eyes, like marbles held up to the light. 

“Alright?” Emiliano queries, and Barnabas frowns, not able to nod, briefly caught in uncertainty until Emiliano laughs, bending to drop a kiss to his hairline. “Blink once for yes, twice for no. Are you alright?” 

Jonah does not quite trust Emiliano. Mordechai does not quite trust Emiliano. They both seem to like him well enough but they’re different around him, cagey, twitchy, speaking in odd little turns of phrase that Barnabas thinks hold meanings he cannot understand. But he trusts Emiliano. Emiliano will let him sit quietly, will talk to him of art or of antiques and stroke his hair, and not mind if he doesn’t feel he has anything to add, will tease him and open his arms. 

Barnabas blinks, just once, and then closes his eyes for the next pass of the pen, down from his clavicle to his navel. He can feel sweeps of the pen between his ribs, pressing in, sharp enough to hurt, and then the push of Emiliano’s thumb over his ribs, fingerprints, the spread of his palm over his belly. 

More flowing circles around his nipples, lines across the tender inside of his thighs, and Barnabas breathes heavily through his nose as he hears the tap of the pen against the rim of the inkpot again, cracking his eyes open to watch Emiliano trail fingertips over his calves, follow them with ink, marking him, staining the sheet. He can’t make any sense of whatever Emiliano is drawing - it seems to be nonsensical, curves and spots and lines - but it’s stylistic, and the sensation of the pen is impossible to ignore. 

He breathes in, and Emiliano’s pen finds his calves, followed swiftly by the blunt pressure of Emiliano’s teeth setting a ring of bruises into the muscle. He breathes out, and it sweeps over his side, followed by red lines from Emiliano’s nails that make Barnabas whine at the back of his throat. The pen finds the sheet again and Barnabas almost misses its stinging pressure until he feels Emiliano’s hand close over his cock and realises he’s been hard for a while now, letting out a high-pitched noise as he tries not to shake under him, closing his eyes tightly. 

“Jonah was right, this is a far better use for your mouth than gossipping,” Emiliano muses, and Barnabas shivers, the pen tracing the outline of his cock where it lies against his stomach, no doubt smudging the ink as it leaks, dripping along with the sweat shining on his chest. “There, now, look at you - a work of art,” Emiliano adds, soft and warm, and Barnabas feels tears stinging his eyes again, dripping against his temples. “Oh, don’t- you _are_ , you know. Beautiful boy,” Emiliano croons. 

Perhaps this is better. An empty canvas for Emiliano to work at, something that he can make lovely. Barnabas holds himself like a statue and trembles as the marks of the pen are interspersed with strokes from his hand, and once, a wet kiss pressed to the glistening head of his erection, ignored, worshipped. 

He doesn’t know how long Emiliano takes. Only that he is shivering when the inkpot is taken from his mouth, and he is marked all over, from the soles of his feet to his fingertips, his hair wet where his tears have run from his eyes and down the sides of his skull. The sheet is marked too, edge to edge, swirling patterns that run from his ribs onto the white fabric without a break, making him part of the work, part of whatever Emiliano is creating, absorbed into something beautiful.

“ _Please_ -” he whispers as soon as his mouth is free, and is silenced with a kiss, with the curl of Emiliano’s hand around him and then, finally, some strokes in earnest, slow and steady no matter how Barnabas begs, how he entreats - he will never gossip again, he will be silent, he will be good, oh, he will be so good - 

When Emiliano takes mercy on him, he opens his eyes again to the splatter of pearly white, stark against the stripes and swirls on his stomach, and heated, hungry satisfaction on Emiliano’s face. 

“Perfect,” he murmurs, and Barnabas could _weep_. He is weeping. He is lifted to his knees, and then into a tub, to stain the water black while the sheet is folded carefully and set in Emiliano’s travelling trunk, shivering with his arms around his knees while Emiliano cleans him, makes him fresh and new again. 

He is silent when he is lifted out, dried, re-dressed, set to his knees, silent when Emiliano pulls himself from his trousers and bids him open his mouth, silent afterwards when he lays his cheek against his thigh and closes his eyes, salt on his lips, bitterness on his tongue, and nothing, nothing in his head, nothing at all. 

* * * 

“Jonah once told me that he hates looking at the stars for too long,” Barnabas whispers. 

They’re out on the sand dunes, a way from the camp, and with his hair still damp and dressed in his nightclothes, he ought to be freezing. Emiliano settles a blanket around his shoulders and sits next to him, and Barnabas is still, not quite warm, not quite cold either, bare feet half-buried in the sand. 

“Really? Why’s that?” 

“I think-” Barnabas wracks his brain, remembering back to a night in Kent, the grass frost-tipped and the skies clear above them, and Jonah’s beautiful face in profile, lit by moonlight. “It’s the thought that so many people have looked up at those same stars. And they’re gone. And this is it, this life, this is all of it - whatever we’re doing now, it will end, and there are no second chances.” 

“Ah.” Emiliano nods as if that makes perfect sense. “I suppose that frightens him.” 

“I suppose it does,” Barnabas agrees. Jonah has such a fear of insignificance, of transience. It’s such a morbid thought in someone as young as he is, as young as they are. “It doesn’t frighten me. I think it’s quite comforting.” 

“That there are no second chances?” 

“That things end. And eventually, all mistakes are forgotten.” 

Barnabas can feel Emiliano’s eyes on the side of his head, but he doesn’t turn to look at him, and eventually Emiliano sighs out an odd little breath, halfway to a chuckle, and squeezes his shoulder. The sand groans and shifts and sings and the sky is yawning open above them, stars glittering like a multitude of needle-sharp teeth.

“None of this matters. And everything ends,” he agrees, and Barnabas thinks he has never heard such tenderness in his voice before. 

He never does write to Percy. If his reticence is marked, it will soon be forgotten, drained like ink into the sand. 

* * * 

**Emiliano Miniati**

**__**_Vacuum_ , c. 1813

Ink on linen 

_One of his more abstract works, a fluid series of calligraphic lines on a large piece of linen, flowing around the silhouette of a man, left empty. Miniati was known to have noted that this work was always unfinished_. 


	3. Entropy

“You’re different.” 

It’s not a question. It falls on Barnabas’ ear like an axe, like the creak of a collapsing tree in the woods. He tilts his head a little, making a face when hair falls into his eyes and brushing it impatiently away. It’s got too long but he’s loath to cut it, imagining sometimes that if he runs his hand through it he can still feel the warmth of the sun, the grittiness of sand. 

“I am?” he asks, the words drifting from him like smoke, like water vapour. The mist is rolling in on Mordechai’s estate, obscuring the treeline, the lake, and the carriage he’s just stepped out of. Normally it cloaks everything like a chrysalis, winding itself around him like bandages. Now the mist shivers at the edge of his fingertips, tearing itself to shreds - in half, and in half, and in half, and in half. Over and over. Ad infinitum. 

Barnabas isn’t sure how long he watches it for. When he looks up, Mordechai is still standing in front of him, his expression unreadable. 

“Perhaps I am,” he admits. Mordechai looks younger, somehow. Barnabas wants to dig his fingers into him, draw out each new cell, each part of Mordechai that’s been born since he last left. The thought is sudden and violent and retreats as swiftly as it arrived, leaving Barnabas blinking and reaching out to the side to try and find purchase on something.

He finds Mordechai’s hand, quite unexpectedly solid beneath his, cold and hard like granite. He can feel each whorl and wrinkle in his fingertips, like a maze etched into his skin. Individual, he knows. Unique. Barnabas curls his fingers over Mordechai’s and pulls his hand up, brings it to his face while Mordechai watches him. Always so placid, Mordechai, passive and unresisting. Until he isn’t. The threshold feels fragile between them, like a meniscus, the bend of water clinging against the pull of its own weight. 

“Would you like me to tell you about it?” he asks, trailing Mordechai’s hand over his cheek, his jaw, his heat-chapped lips. Mordechai shakes his head mutely and steps towards him with a sigh, dwarfing him in his shadow as the mist rolls in to fill the spaces between them. 

No matter. The mist could engulf him entirely and—atoms being what they are—they’ll never touch him, not really. There is an infinity of space between himself and Mordechai, even with their hands pressed together. Barnabas understands that, now. 

“Can I show you?” he asks instead, and Mordechai watches him with a new and understandable wariness. 

“You shouldn’t have gone away.” 

“You wanted me to go away.” 

“So you could come back. Not like this.” 

“Not like this,” Barnabas agrees, smiling against the palm of Mordechai’s hand. 

“What will Jonah say?” Mordechai wonders, and Barnabas’ smile twitches, fades. 

Tearing down altars is back-breaking, soul-rending work. The pedestal on which Jonah stood still feels lodged in his chest like a splinter. Time will wear it down. The hourglass will turn and sand will scour him clean, grain by grain, but he can still feel the beating of his first and last offering to Jonah thumping against his ribs. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says finally, and Mordechai’s smile is thin and grim and satisfied. Schadenfreude, Barnabas supposes. “I was always a burnt offering to the two of you. You wanted the meat of me, and Jonah wanted the worship.”

Mordechai nods, of course; there’s no point in denying it now. His fingers curl a little against Barnabas’ lower lip and Barnabas can recall a hundred nights beforehand, the taste of Mordechai’s skin, the pressure of his fingers against his tongue. Barnabas still can’t quite read his expression. But maybe that’s no surprise, since he can’t quite make out the features of his face. No wonder Emiliano paints so much, if faces are this fluid. Capturing them in one still moment must feel like a victory. 

Like this, surrounded by mist, the ground and the air and the sky are all white and opaque. It’s like being caught inside a snowglobe, or a blind, misted eye. It’s like being surrounded by a feather bed. Barnabas considers just falling back into it, but he feels Mordechai’s other hand at his shoulder, weighing him down. 

“What will Jonathan say?” he asks next—testing him, pressing at his fragile edges—and Barnabas shakes his head. Jonathan is mired in the troubles of the world: his patients, his friends, the threats of blood and fatigue and misery. They claw at him like weeds up the side of a building, so thick and so strong that if one were to take them away, he might just crumble without their support. Barnabas knows a lost cause when he sees one. 

It ought to be freezing out here. There’s frost under his boots, and chapping at Mordechai’s pale cheeks. But each cell, each atom of him is vibrating. Moving, moving, moving, like ants in a nest, bees in a hive. It won’t be that way forever, but for now it’s more than enough to keep him warm. 

He parts his lips for Mordechai to let him slip his fingers into his mouth, the fingers of his free hand coming up to cradle his jaw and hold him steady while Mordechai presses the pads of his fingertips to his teeth, to the wet insides of his cheeks, to the give of flesh against his throat. 

“You feel solid to me,” Mordechai murmurs, picking up an odd, crooning tone. Teasing, perhaps. Barnabas has the feeling he’s said this before—perhaps to Emiliano. Perhaps he’s re-shuffling their roles in his head. Mordechai only has room in his life for so many influences. One door closes, one sacrifice leaves, and another potential ally—potential enemy—approaches. 

Barnabas can’t reply with his mouth full but he blinks at Mordechai, wide-eyed and innocent enough to make Mordechai snort and withdraw his hand, wiping it on his trousers with a sigh. “It’s not often, Mr Bennett, that I’m surprised.” 

“Relatively surprised,” Barnabas replies, working his jaw, and Mordechai rolls his eyes. 

“Relatively,” he agrees. “I know. Everything is relative, and nothing is exact, and nothing matters. I know your creed.” 

Barnabas can still feel, somewhere deep inside of him, that pull. It sits curled around the bottom two vertebrae of his spine like a leash. It wants to tug him back into the fog, to whisper to him that he will always be alone. He thinks, perhaps, that he could bear that now. Everyone is always alone at their beginnings and at their ends. It doesn’t matter. 

But maybe it’s the familiarity that keeps him affectionate. Everything has been still and slow and tidal thus far. He could change that. He could take Mordechai’s arm and throw him shrieking through the hourglass, bumping against its edges and worn down to nothing by the sands. 

“Let me-” it comes out a little choked, a little desperate, and Mordechai bends his head towards him to stop his mouth with a kiss. His lips crackle against Barnabas’ like dry leaves. 

“Just this once. For old time’s sake.” 

Propriety would demand that they go inside, but nobody can see them out here. There’s nobody to watch as Barnabas unclasps the silver brooch holding Mordechai’s cloak, rubbing his thumb over it. He knows what the Lukas family crest looks like, and has looked like for centuries—three firs, on the diagonal—but the crest on this clasp is different. Just the one fir, and a wave beneath it. 

“Time for a change, I thought,” Mordechai explains, and Barnabas almost wants to laugh. 

“You’ve been taking too much from Jonah. That’s a very aesthetic consideration,” he says fondly, and he can see how Mordechai wants to flinch away from that. All that affection, and no warmth behind it. No need, no want, no reliance. Barnabas can give and give, now, in the knowledge that he will never be taken from; his cup runneth o’er, and he could drown Mordechai in it. 

“Careful,” Mordechai warns as Barnabas starts on the buttons of his waistcoat, undoes the clasp of his belt and the lacing of his shirt. “Arrogance doesn’t suit you.” 

“No. But you’ll let me,” Barnabas replies placidly. Mordechai closes his eyes as if pained and Barnabas sighs, considering him. He can hardly see his face at all, now, past the mist. “Alright. Here,” he murmurs, taking pity and reaching up to rub his thumb over Mordechai’s eyelids. “Keep them closed.” 

It won’t matter if Mordechai doesn’t. If he opens them, all he’ll see is atoms. Each and every one, so many that it would be impossible to focus on any single one, or any group, to draw out distinctions and shapes inside of the humming mass. Mordechai’s expression creases with genuine distaste and Barnabas hushes him, catching him by the hip until his breathing settles a little. 

“You’ve had this done to you before?” 

“You learned all your tricks from Emiliano,” Mordechai replies dryly. “He’s not stingy about showing off.” 

“You let him do this to you as well,” Barnabas murmurs, not sure why he’s so surprised. 

“You let him do far more to you,” Mordechai retorts and Barnabas shrugs, concedes the point. 

“You were going to kill me. Is this so much worse?” 

“Yes.” It’s not said with any particular rancor, but Barnabas is quite sure that Mordechai means it. Better that he die than go off to another. Barnabas wonders whether Mordechai sees this as a kind of betrayal. For a man so tightly bound into the Lonely, he takes things so _personally_. 

He shouldn’t know all of this. How does he know all of this? 

The thought slides away after a few seconds, Barnabas distracted by the thump of Mordechai’s heart under his palm as he slides it upwards, brushing a thumb over his nipple to see Mordechai’s face flicker. Off comes the waistcoat, the shirt, Barnabas standing on tiptoes to slide it over Mordechai’s head, tangling his hands in his hair while he has the chance and pulling gently to tilt Mordechai’s head down and kiss him again. 

He tastes like frost and blood and smoke. He tastes like something just-born and long-dead. Barnabas wonders if he tastes any different to Mordechai, now, if the process of removing him from Mordechai’s plate has soured him, or if he’s sweeter now. Forbidden fruit. Mordechai’s hands close around his waist and hold him fast for a moment, and Barnabas lets himself lean into the embrace. 

“Is it a relief?” Mordechai murmurs against his lips, and Barnabas bites him by way of reproof just to make him jump, licking away the blood that beads up where Barnabas’ incisor has nicked Mordechai’s lower lip. He’s sharper, now, when he wants to be. Best that Mordechai remembers that. 

“I was being pulled in every direction,” he replies after a moment’s thought. “Now I’m only being pulled in one. It’s simpler.” 

“Which way?” Mordechai’s hands tug at Barnabas’ trousers, undoing the buttons until he can press a hand inside to feel Barnabas hard and thrumming, blood-hot against his palm. 

“Forwards,” Barnabas breathes, shuddering against his touch. Everything feels so much more immediate when it’s set against the contrast of infinity. This sensation will only last a second or two, but it might as well be an eternity. It might as well be tearing him apart. He closes his eyes as well, the two of them blind together, and kisses Mordechai again while he fumbles with his own buttons and sheds the rest of his clothes. 

He can’t rob Mordechai of all of his senses like this—Emiliano hasn’t yet shown him how to fill someone’s ears with the sound of the earth’s rotation, the yawning creak of the universe expanding out and out and out. It’s always expanding, so Emiliano says, but it’s slowing down. One day, everything will be cold, and still, and dead, and that’s entropy. The heat leeches out of the world in increments with each breath, each heartbeat, each split of a cell. 

Barnabas has never known about cells before, has never given consideration to how a body renews itself like the ship of Theseus. Now he can scarcely think about anything else, and he still doesn’t know how it is he _knows_ any of this.

Mordechai’s touch is cleansing, though. When they’re both bare and pressed together, Barnabas can feel the edges of his atoms repelling Mordechai’s, keeping them at a distance from one another even as he presses insistently closer. The tension robs him of his breath and leaves him whimpering as he buries his face against Mordechai’s neck, feeling the hot, hard line of him pressed against his belly, the rush of air as Mordechai shushes him and pets through his hair. 

“Not half so confident now, are you?” Mordechai teases, feet planted. He’s still wearing his boots, they both are. If anyone were here to see them, they’d look ridiculous. Barnabas feels self-consciousness tear through him, horrifyingly familiar, but it’s smoothed away in seconds by the rub of Mordechai’s rough palm over his spine. 

“I had no idea it was this _raw_ for you,” Mordechai rumbles, hitching one of Barnabas’ legs around his waist, and then the other, lifting him bodily up into his arms. Barnabas wraps his arms around his neck reflexively, listening to the sound of Mordechai spitting into his hand and then wrapping his fingers around them both, the sensation _searing_. “Everything at once, hm? Everything and nothing. Never mind.” 

Barnabas breathes hard, biting down on Mordechai’s shoulder with a rush of righteous indignation—he was going to eat him, going to _kill_ him, going to consume him for no other reason than to prove he could—but a moment later he’s kissing where the bruised indents of his teeth will bloom purple in the morning, rolling his hips into Mordechai’s hand. 

He feels a little like Mordechai could erode him like this. Stroke by stroke, thrust by thrust, grinding him down like a blade to a whetstone. Dissembling him, piece by piece. But there’s no removing him, not really—until the universe tires of him, if Mordechai breaks him down to dust then he’ll be breathed in, breathed out, caked into the flesh of Mordechai’s lungs. He knows this. He thinks that perhaps Mordechai knows this too. 

“It’s always been raw,” he grits out finally, nails digging into Mordechai’s neck, his spine. “Nothing’s changed, in that respect.” An entire life lived in the grip of unpredictable emotional tides, dragged this way and that. Funny that sinking should make things so much calmer, but there are no waves to buffet him beneath the surface. Mordechai chuckles again. He’s done that rather too much for Barnabas’ liking throughout the course of this interaction. 

He doesn’t expect Mordechai to see him as an equal; that’s always been off the cards. Mordechai is older, stronger, more at ease in this new world into which Barnabas has only just been dragged. Still wet behind the ears, the remnants of his own old fears streaked like blood over his face and his neck. No matter. Now, for the first time, he has the capacity to pull Mordechai from his axis and send him teetering into uncertainty as well. 

The ground must still be invisible beneath all of the mist. Then it simply isn’t there at all. Mordechai’s grip tightens on him instinctively and Barnabas opens his eyes to watch colours streak past them, the exhilarating rush of being spun like a sycamore seed through an endless, infinite sky. And then, sweeter than sweet, a newly-familiar taste on the tip of his tongue. Fear. Mordechai is afraid. _Good_. 

Inside of him has always been a yawning, aching emptiness that he has tried to fill with love or tenderness or compassion, swiftly disappearing into the vacuum into his chest. The rest of the universe is a vacuum too, for the most part. If he is hollow, if he has always been hollow, well then he is a microcosm of what it is to _be_ , and what could be more fitting than that? Barnabas buries his face in Mordechai’s neck to feel the relentless pounding of his too-fast heart, the bruising grip on his hips, the way Mordechai tries to speak and finds the words flung from him. 

“Good,” Barnabas whispers, hoarse and victorious and terrified. “Hush, now.” He unwinds his arms from Mordechai’s neck with a frantic grin, teeth bared into the void, wind stripping at his skin and pushing his hair back from his face. “Look. No hands.” 

He can see the way that Mordechai’s teeth are gritted, the pressure at his jaw, though he hasn’t dropped Barnabas, he hasn’t made any move to let go where he’s still gripping both of their lengths in one huge hand. It’s tight, too tight, but that’s fine. Barnabas thinks he understands, now, some of Jonah’s obsessive careening towards pain and harm and mayhem—it takes some of the urgency from the hunger, it deadens the fear. God, he could _weep_. It occurs to him that he doesn’t know if he can set them gently down again. 

Perhaps this it. 

Barnabas kisses Mordechai again, gripping his face between his palms to make him open his mouth to him, breathing in the air ripped from his lungs as they plummet into the nothingness together. Mordechai’s mouth is freezing cold, and when Barnabas pulls back he can see that his eyes are clouded with mist, fog leaking from the corners of his mouth as the Lonely tries to pull them back. Too little, too late. 

He hooks his fingers against Mordechai’s lips to drag his mouth open and draw out more of the mist, pressing his hand further, further in, until his fingertips brush the glacial slick of the back of Mordechai’s throat and steal a ragged, wretched groan from his chest, close enough to grasp. Mordechai is still hard against him, hips bucking, and Barnabas understands that, too. They are all such craven, hungry things. They debase themselves together. It’s a little bit beautiful. It’s a little bit pathetic. 

“I have you,” he croons, soft and soothing, the way he would whisper to Jonah after a bad dream, the way he would draw Jonathan from his writing desk and to the transient embrace of sleep. “I could drag your heart right out of you, if you had one.” 

Mordechai bites him, then, teeth closing hard around his fingers, and Barnabas feels the skin split, feels the rush of blood over Mordechai’s tongue, and he _laughs_. Even now, Mordechai is wrestling for control. Even now, he wants to consume him. He wonders if it’s his laughter or the taste of his blood that makes Mordechai twitch so gratifyingly against him. He must be running out of breath by now. That doesn’t seem to stop him from rocking his hips forward, Barnabas grinding right back against him to chase sparks of pleasure struck from the flint of his newly-hardened resolve, disappearing into the space between them. 

Is he imagining that Mordechai’s grip is loosening? Perhaps the lack of oxygen is starting to get to him—his eyes are rolling back in his head, lips slack around his fingers again, bloodstained and blue from the chill. He must feel helpless like this, blind and falling. Barnabas feels none of the sympathy he might expect to tug at him from that knowledge. He feels nothing at all. 

But he does get to choose the ending, this time. 

Barnabas pulls his hands from Mordechai’s mouth and winds his fingers tightly into the emptiness around them, tugging it hard like the strings of a corset to bring everything in close and tight. It’s difficult, like pushing lodestones together, invisible pressure thick between his fingers as the world tries to maintain its expansion outwards even while he holds it back—a moment longer, just a little longer—

The friction of atom on atom on atom is enough to slow their descent, enough to let Mordechai drag in a shuddering breath and narrow his eyes, digging his nails tightly into Barnabas’ naked back as if he means to pull him apart entirely, to split him like an overripe peach. Well, let him. Barnabas kisses his blood from Mordechai’s lips and drinks down each honeyed fragment of fear, groans at the slide of his cock against Mordechai’s, the chill of the vacuum around them only held back by their beating hearts and aching lungs, a hot little tangle of transient, temporary life. 

Maybe there’s something beautiful in their insignificance. The more Barnabas thinks about it, the more comforting it is. The air is dark and cold and infinite around them, and the borders of the universe are spiralling out and away and none of this, _none of this_ matters. 

Barnabas presses still-closer, trailing kisses down the column of Mordechai’s neck and feeling his breath shudder out of him, his nails splitting the skin of his back, blood on his lips, his teeth, his fingers. Barnabas presses his teeth to Mordechai’s throat just to feel him go tense and uncertain, nips playfully to hear him groan, still strained and breathless. 

“Brat,” Mordechai grits out and Barnabas _laughs_ , warmed right through by that little reminder of familiarity. Mordechai still thinks he knows him—as much as he can know anybody—and Barnabas finds himself strangely touched. There are impossible colours swirling around them, and behind it all the darkness, the endless, velvet darkness, thick enough that it seems to be leeching the form from Mordechai’s face, from Barnabas’ hands, dragging them into the fabric of whatever they’re falling through. 

When Barnabas pulls away Mordechai is looking at him strangely, eyes hazy with arousal, cheeks uncharacteristically flushed as he pushes his hips hard against Barnabas’, the two of them spurring one another on. 

“What?” Barnabas asks sharply, forcing definition into his tone where the air wants to make it formless and abstract. 

“You feel—you’re not—” Mordechai lifts a hand as if meaning to set it to his face and Barnabas frowns, reaching up to catch it before he can. His own hands look—different. Freckled, maybe. Bitten nails and ink-stains, a scar down one thumb. Jonah’s? No. Larger. Softer. And Mordechai’s face is shifting between his usual sharpness and something softer, a dimple winking in and out of existence on his cheek, smiling eyes as empty and insincere as Simon’s can be when he’s cross. He must feel different to Mordechai too where he’s pressed against him, the shape of his body changing, shifting incrementally softer.

Barnabas draws in a breath, startled to realise that he knows the answer to this—he _knows_.

“Everyone that will— _nnh—_ e-everyone and everything that will ever be—it already exists. In pieces. In you, in me,” he whispers. “Your descendants. Mine. Que sera, sera.” 

Mordechai _hates_ that thought, Barnabas can see it in his face before he sets his jaw (it’s the wrong shape, a little squarer, his cheeks a little leaner), the way his eyes go flat and spiteful. Spite is the last avenue of a desperate man, Barnabas thinks, and God, aren’t they both desperate? Neither of them have any control here, not really. 

“You’ll never have any descendants,” Mordechai tells him, and it’s true, and Barnabas knows it. He shrugs and reaches down with his free hand to feel Mordechai still hard and straining against him, wrapping his fingers tightly around him—too tightly, twisting until he sees the skin around Mordechai’s eyes tighten with discomfort. 

“Maybe neither of us will,” he replies. Mordechai grins, teeth still blood-stained, hair still floating around his face as they fall, long strands of dead grass and discarded duck-down. 

“Fierceness suits you.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“No.” Mordechai squeezes Barnabas’ hand almost fondly. “You’re not long for this world, are you?” 

“Is anyone?” 

Mordechai chuckles, and there’s a sort of resignation on his face now. “Taking your pleasures where you can, then. Emiliano _has_ taught you well.” 

Barnabas leans forward to kiss Mordechai again, largely to shut him up, his throat tight. Maybe this will be the making of him. Maybe this will be the end of him altogether. He’s not sure that being consumed like this is any better than whatever Mordechai had in store for him, but at least he can pretend he’s choosing this—that he’s _chosen_ this—that he was chosen by this. At least this way he can make Mordechai afraid, he can make him stop and listen and _see_ him. 

Mordechai lets go of his hand, reaching down to wrap them both in one broad, calloused palm, and Barnabas shudders against him, burying his face against his neck once more and breathing in mint and sweat and fear. The rising, cresting tide of pleasure is the only thing that’s familiar here, tinged with the same bitterness of all of his encounters with Mordechai.

At least this time Mordechai isn’t teasing him, perhaps tiring of falling through infinity, floating and floating—his strokes are firm and fast and relentless, his teeth glass-sharp against his neck, his arm like an iron band against his spine, stopping him from evaporating into the space around them, dripping away piece by piece. When Barnabas finally twitches and arches and cries out he can hear the sound being snatched away from them, see the way Mordechai’s blinded eyes roll back in his head, the way their skin looks like it might just blend together into one smooth expanse if he lets them keep falling—

He could—he could let them keep falling—

“Not like this,” Mordechai whispers to him, soft and almost tender, his voice steady even as Barnabas tastes fear. It’s like honey, still, but a heavy mouthful of it, spilling over his lips, coating his throat and stopping his breath. “Not like this, Barnabas.” 

Barnabas closes his eyes and wonders if he wants to grasp the reins after all. Perhaps it’s better to be done unto. 

“Alright,” he whispers, and brings them back to earth. 

When he opens his eyes they’re back outside the estate, and the mist is wreathing them both in thick, opaque coils, slithering over Mordechai’s chest and his mouth and his sightless, Void-clouded eyes. Mordechai is on his back in the damp grass, hands clenched against Barnabas’ hips where he straddles him, bracing his palms against his chest and marvelling at the solidity of him. 

He only gets a second or two to wonder at it before Mordechai tightens his grip and flips them, pressing Barnabas against the soil hard enough to steal his breath from him. Even without his sight Mordechai is more than formidable, pinning him with an arm barred over his throat and one hand braced against his chest heavy enough that it feels like he could reach through to his ribs and tear him open. 

“You always were a foolish little boy,” Mordechai sighs, sounding almost rueful. He feels his way from Barnabas’ chest up to his jaw, pressing hard against his throat until Barnabas writhes like a hooked fish underneath him, nails digging into his skin. “I could drag your spine right out of you, if you had one.”

Barnabas chokes on a moan, claustrophobic at the weight of him pressing him down to the ground, down and down, pinned and compressed and flattened. He’s terrified. He’s never felt more alive. His mouth tastes like blood and frost and sweet, sweet fear, and he can’t even draw breath to scream.

“Mordechai,” he tries to whisper, and Mordechai just shushes him, using his knee to nudge Barnabas’ legs apart, pressing up to the juncture where Barnabas is still sensitive and twitching. 

“Quiet.” 

Barnabas jolts indignantly, craning his neck enough to make the only response he feels he can and spit directly into Mordechai’s face. It’s not elegant or brave or clever, but it makes him feel slightly better to see Mordechai sigh, the exasperated look he gives him before he shifts to slap him roughly across the face. The force of it snaps his neck to the side; force enough to break a man, Barnabas thinks. He feels distinctly unbroken. The heat of Mordechai’s palm against his cheek fades in seconds and he rocks his hips upwards, gasping. 

Mordechai seems cognizant of this new robustness as he pulls away, throwing Barnabas’ legs over his broad shoulders and bending to lick and suck him into hardness again, drooling over his cock until it’s straining, and Barnabas can feel the cold air chilling trails of spit sliding between his cheeks where Mordechai presses with blunt, insistent fingers. 

It’s one way to fill a vacuum, he thinks. One way to fill a gap. Even if Mordechai makes him cry and beg just like he did when he was still himself. Even if Mordechai fucks him hard enough to hurt, hard enough that Barnabas wonders if he’ll shatter into pieces under his weight. 

And to think, a moment ago—a lifetime ago—he held Mordechai’s life in his hands. No matter. Barnabas reaches up to cling to Mordechai’s broad shoulders and is unceremoniously tugged up into his lap, holding tightly to him and staring at the writhing mist, like a nest of snakes, like a tangle of shaking threads. Just one pull to untie the whole sorry mess, the whole bloody tapestry. 

When Mordechai bites his shoulder and twitches inside him, he feels so _warm_. 

The world settles back into order. The mist creeps away like the tide going out and Barnabas rubs his thumb over Mordechai’s eyes to bring his sight back to him, watching him blink and huff and stare hard at Barnabas for a few seconds, raking his eyes over his body. 

“You’ll have other sacrifices,” Barnabas sighs, stretching out on the wet grass and rolling onto his belly, goosebumps flickering up and down his bare legs. Mordechai grunts but lies down next to him, an inch-wide strip of ground separating them from one another. It might as well be an acre. It might as well be a universe. 

“Will you?” Mordechai asks finally, and Barnabas licks his lips as he considers the honey-sweetness of Mordechai’s fear, the righteous heat of vengeance, the joy of committing another bundle of atoms back to the endless, whirling mass at the centre of it all. 

But this was settling old scores. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to start new ones. 

“I don’t think so.” 

“Emiliano will be disappointed.” Mordechai sounds far too smug at that and Barnabas considers throwing him back into the emptiness all over again. He refrains, tangling his fingers in a handful of grass and pulling it up, pushing the dirt underneath his nails. 

“Not for long.” Mordechai nods as if this was all quite predictable, staring up at the sky with a blank expression, and Barnabas musters a smile from somewhere to nudge his leg gently against Mordechai’s. “Don’t tell me you’ll miss me?” 

Mordechai says nothing, and Barnabas feels a strange frisson tugging at his lungs, at the bottom two vertebrae of his spine. _Feed it_ , Emiliano had told him, _or it will feed upon you_. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be consumed from the inside out. He touches Mordechai’s cheek, feeling where the skin is starting to wrinkle, losing its elasticity. Not long, now. Not in the grand scheme of things. Emiliano might go on and on for a millennium more, but Mordechai won’t, and Barnabas knows this, and he doesn’t know how he knows this. 

“Well.” Mordechai turns his head to look at Barnabas, raising his eyebrows. “Goodbye, then.” 

_Au revoir_ , Barnabas wants to say. But that’s not right either. He pushes himself up a little, resting his weight on his elbows, and leans in; the gap between them might as well be an acre, but Mordechai closes it anyway.

And maybe after this kiss, Barnabas will get up and walk away. Perhaps he’ll stay a while longer—a week, a month, a year. Maybe, after this kiss, there’ll be nothing left of him at all and Mordechai will open his eyes to the empty air. Perhaps it will be a relief for the both of them. Any number of things could happen. None of them matter much. Like this, caught in a snowglobe of mist and fear and shattered illusions, their kiss might as well be everlasting. 


End file.
